Anyone know how to get rid of green hair algae
- Thread starter isaacfish
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Stop pressure washing them, you're killing beneficial stuff that will compete with the algae. Get some urchins or other herbivores, urchins work best as they scour the "holdfasts" or the part of algae that adheres to rock. What SPS2020 said. See also Aquabiomics article on using live rock to establish healthy microbiomes,I'm guessing you didn't use any maricultured live rock to help inytroduce beneficial stuff you cant get in a bottle.
Reef Flux!
kevgib67
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Get your nutrients in control and balanced. Manual removal and increase your cuc. My tuxedo urchin is the best for algae out of all my cuc but remember you still need to keep it manually short for them to eat it. It appears the sea hare is the king of gha removal. I never had one but saw before and after pictures from adding one and wow!
Jekyl
GSP is the devil and clowns are bad pets
Manual removal, managing parameters, proper CuC and time. Those are the best methods.
Avoid using miracle cures in bottles. Most of them are algicide and cause more harm than good.
Avoid using miracle cures in bottles. Most of them are algicide and cause more harm than good.
Yikes - do not pressure wash your rock!
Get your parameters in check.
Manually remove as much of the algae as you can by pulling it off the rock and immediately siphoning it out.
Black out the tank and keep the lights off.
Add some good algae eating tangs.
Get your parameters in check.
Manually remove as much of the algae as you can by pulling it off the rock and immediately siphoning it out.
Black out the tank and keep the lights off.
Add some good algae eating tangs.
krollins
Active Member
Only add tangs in a 75 gallon+ tank.
merkmerk73
Active Member
Disagree
Algaecide (Vibrant) wiped out my GHA problem that would not be controlled and it never came back in the DT
Sod Buster
Valuable Member
Sorry. Spend hours using the search bar. Read the 1000 page Vibrant thread from 6 years ago. Magic if you can follow the story. I used it, curse in my experience
GHA, like most algae is 100% natural in a reef system as long as certain conditions are met, such as there being ample light and a food source. That is really all it needs to grow, and it will out draw nutrients from your water faster than export methods can lower those values. Since it does occur naturally there are natural solutions to this. Urchins are great but most urchins eat coraline algae as well as GHA. Clean up Crew, CuC . Reefcleaners.org has a nice break down of cleaners and what they specialize in eating! You may enjoy taking a few minutes to go and browse the livestock they have.
If your tank is large enough I suggest a Tang or 2, but you must be in the 70gallon or larger club for Tangs. I love mine, they spend all day picking at my rocks keeping the algae in check.
Reef Flux will kill it, but it kills a lot of other stuff as well like all other green algae. It can also cause nutrient imbalance that stresses/kills corals because of the sudden elimination of a nutrient uptake. I would not suggest Reef Flux for treating anything except Bryopsis, and only for Bryopsis because of how persistent it can be.
Copepods. Look into them, and Ampipods. Good luck.
If your tank is large enough I suggest a Tang or 2, but you must be in the 70gallon or larger club for Tangs. I love mine, they spend all day picking at my rocks keeping the algae in check.
Reef Flux will kill it, but it kills a lot of other stuff as well like all other green algae. It can also cause nutrient imbalance that stresses/kills corals because of the sudden elimination of a nutrient uptake. I would not suggest Reef Flux for treating anything except Bryopsis, and only for Bryopsis because of how persistent it can be.
Copepods. Look into them, and Ampipods. Good luck.
Ksturg
Active Member
I’ve been battling as well I’m on the down hill slide of it now. My phosphate was at .5 I now have it down to .03 using rowaphos and dosing vibrant. It has been a long process of manual removal everyday. It’s now went from green to brown and is coming off pretty easy and I’m not seeing really any more growth. It’s taken me about 2 month to get where I’m at.
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merkmerk73
Active Member
Most of the negativity around vibrant is because of shady marketing practices
I don't really care about that, I care about killing my GHA off, which vibrant did without hurting anything in my tank.
I also suspect negative consequences to vibrant are related to not managing nutrients properly (water changes), and overdosing vibrant.
Just use algaefix- it’s what vibrant is selling in their more expensive and better marketed bottle.
I used it with great success, but as others have pointed out, in conjunction with cleanup crew, nutrient control and balance, etc.
caddnima
New Member
If you are going to remove the rock anyways, might as well put it in a saltwater mixed with hydrogen peroxide. That is if you want to keep the bacteria. But if you don't care about bacteria, then I would clean the rock with fresh water and bleach in the correct ratio. It should kill the algae in a few days.
